Heart shaped Tcho chocolates wrapped in boxes at Tcho in San Francisco, Calif. on Wednesday, February 4, 2009.

Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

Heart shaped Tcho chocolates wrapped in boxes at Tcho in San...

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Tcho founders Louis Rosetto (l to r) and Timothy Childs photographed at Tcho in San Francisco, Calif. on Wednesday, February 4, 2009. Behind them is the molding machine at Tcho, which was made in 1972 in East Germany, has been completely refurbished, is currently being tested and will be up and running in April of 2009 and is photographed in San Francisco, Calif. on Wednesday, February 4, 2009.

Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

Tcho founders Louis Rosetto (l to r) and Timothy Childs...

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My Ha Tran (left) and Maria Torres work in a 40 foot container used as a temporary production facility at Tcho in San Francisco, Calif. on Wednesday, February 4, 2009.

A former NASA technologist and the high priest of the digital revolution have spent three years and millions of dollars on a stealth operation in an old pier on San Francisco's waterfront.

Machines were imported from a castle in Germany. Common kitchen gadgets like turkey roasters and curry mixers were tricked out for unconventional use. Automation software was written to allow for 3-D monitoring of the labs from an iPhone.

Timothy Childs, the rocket scientist, and Louis Rossetto, the founder of Wired magazine, are ready to introduce their latest brainchild: chocolate. Not just any chocolate, but TCHO Chocolate, where technology meets chocolate, Third World farmers get paid more and, the creators say, "the last good drug" just got better.

As Tcho chocolates begin to reach the market, the 30-person company located at Pier 17, becomes the only maker from bean to bar of chocolate in San Francisco and one of the dozen or so true chocolate makers in the United States. The molding machine at Tch

Media: San Francisco Chronicle

"We spent three years putting this together," said Rossetto, the silver-maned CEO of TCHO, who started Wired magazine in 1992 and sold it six years later for a reported $30 million. "Now, for me, it's like the first issue is about to hit the stands. We're in a magical moment."

As TCHO chocolates begin to reach the market, the 30-person company located at Pier 17 becomes the only maker from bean to bar of chocolate in San Francisco, and one of the dozen or so true chocolate makers in the United States.

"A lot of people pose as chocolate makers, but they're chocolate melters," said Childs, the company's founder and chief chocolate officer. "They take someone else's chocolate and market it. People do that because it's really hard to make chocolate."

Complicated process

Childs, who developed real-time, machine-vision software for the orbiter program and worked out of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, calls chocolate-making "by far the most complex thing I've done. It's killer."

Standing in his small, warm and sweet-smelling lab, Childs talked about the pilot project he's working on with the Peruvian government to establish new ways for farmers to dry and ferment beans; the software he's developing with a research arm of Xerox Corp. for cacao analysis; and the new taxonomy he's created for making and tasting chocolate.

Just back from a trip to Peru, Childs sampled cacao nibs, the roasted bits of the seed.

"Chocolate is an information product," he said. "The whole premise of starting the company was that I wanted to do something that is profitable and fun, but also that touches people. I wanted to tell a story around a bean."

A delicate product

Speaking above the din of mixing machines, Childs added, "People think chocolate comes from some lab in Switzerland, but in reality, it's a fragile agricultural product that starts with a flower on a tree, and that changes a lot and requires a lot of people to work with it. I want to show the loop, from cacao to chocolate, and improve the lives of people in the chain."

On a stainless steel counter nearby, chocolate was being mixed in one of Childs' custom-made contraptions. In this case, Childs had taken a curry mixer from India, attached it to an infrared thermometer, a $40 heater from Walgreens and a dryer duct, and pieced it together with the type of heat-resistant tape used on the space shuttle.

Next to a computer monitor was TCHO's "flavor wheel," the company's taxonomy for chocolate. Instead of using descriptors like "percentage cacao" or "varietal," the TCHO staff spent years thinking about which flavors are inherent in beans from around the world. Its chocolates are now packaged based on those flavors: chocolaty, citrus, fruity, floral, earthy and nutty.

The flavor comes in part from the bean's terroir, a term used to describe how a product reflects the soil, climate and traditions of a region. Another part is coaxed out by Childs in the roasting and fermenting process.

"I tasted 30 different beans to come up with the right bean for fruity," Childs said. "Beans from Madagascar, for example, have big brown stone fruit flavors. I burned off some of those big fruits to get a lighter citrus note."

Smiling, he said, "I love the trial and error of controlling a very specific roast. Since I'm a technologist, I think of things in mathematical, wave function forms. I design chocolates to have an attack, and then for different flavors to come along the way."

Childs marveled that many of the cacao growers he works with have never tasted chocolate from their beans. He makes sure they sample the final product.

New equipment

In Peru, Childs is distributing a new model of fermentaria, the boxes used to naturally ferment cacao, as well as new off-the-ground bamboo drying mats.

"We are taking bits and pieces of designs we've seen around the world and developing them now for farmers in Peru," Childs said. "We're teaching farmers how to do proper bean analysis and cut tests. We're sharing our sensory analysis procedures. We're training them in terms of the quality of beans."

Pulling up a database on his computer, Childs said he will soon be able to monitor fermentaria across the globe from his iPhone.

"In Peru, we're setting up weather and fermentation monitoring and sensory analysis. We are putting temperature probes in the middle of fermentation boxes. We are creating a baseline of data. We are telling farmers to charge us more for beans when they get it right. We are saying, 'If you go from 60 percent fermentation to 72 percent, we will pay more.' We want better uniformity in fermentation."

Julio Guzman, a fourth-generation cacao grower in Guayaquil, Ecuador, has been working closely with Childs and calls him the "Indiana Jones of the industry."

Guzman, whose father began farming cacao in 1880, said in an e-mail from Ecuador, "Technology can help locate the best areas to plant and grow cacao, yet it cannot replace the old hand labor that maintains to this day the mystery and tradition of the process. Timothy understands this and goes again and again into rather remote regions where cacao grows."

Testing, testing

In San Francisco, confectioner Michael Recchiuti, who has a shop in the Ferry Building, has been testing TCHO's chocolates.

"I'm looking at how their chocolate behaves when melted and blended with other ingredients," said Recchiuti, noting that part of TCHO's plan is to serve the professional food market. "The flavors in their chocolate are really robust, which is good. I want something that can hold up to cream and butter."

In helping the upstart chocolate maker, Recchiuti also has been impressed by the passion of the employees. "There's a steep learning curve in making chocolate," he said. "It's good that they're obsessed."

Rossetto came out of quasi retirement to help run and fund TCHO because of similarities he saw between what he'd done at Wired and what was hoped for at TCHO.

"We're not interested in mediocrity," Rossetto said. "We want packaging that looks modern. We want a company that has values. We want to improve the standard of living for those we work with. It is my belief that you have to be obsessed. You have to invest humanity into your product."

SFGate.com

Peek inside the chocolate factory at sfgate.com/video.

TCHO opening

The TCHO factory in San Francisco will open to the public for tours and educational events in the fall. The chocolates are sold at TCHO's store at Pier 17 at Embarcadero and Green and at www.TCHO.com. The chocolates also are available at select specialty stores in San Francisco, Berkeley and San Mateo.